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Tips for creating a secure password

Having a secure, unique password for each of your online accounts is critically important. If a scammer gets just one password, they can begin to access your other accounts. That’s why it’s important to have a strong, unique password for your PayPal login.

A strong password should have the following characteristics:

• More than 8 characters long.
• Use lower case, upper case, a number, and a special character [like ~!@#$%^&*()_+=?><.,/].
• Not a word or date associated with you (like a pet’s name, family names, or birth dates).
• A combination of words with unusual capitalization, numbers, and special characters interspersed. Misspelled words are stronger because they are not in the dictionary used by attackers.
• Something you can remember.

How often should I change my password?

Normally, there should be no reason to change your password or PIN. But there are a few cases where it's a good precaution. For example:

• You notice something suspicious on your PayPal account.
• You suspect that someone you don’t trust has your password.
• You notice something suspicious in your email account or other online accounts.
• You have recently removed malware from your system.
• PayPal asks you to change your password.

If one of these occurs, change your Password, PIN, and security questions immediately. You can change these under personal settings.

If you receive an email asking you to change your password, it could be a case of phishing. Instead of clicking on a suspect link in an email, just log into your PayPal account by manually typing the URL. Click the Settings tab, and then Personal Info. You will find the password, security questions, and PIN (if you've set one up) on this page.

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